Tied to You (Don't Pull Too Hard)
by bookstvnerdlove
Summary: After the group finds Beth, Daryl takes some time to reflect.


**Disclaimer: I don't own anything.**

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Losing Beth is not like losing Merle. He'll always love his brother, in the only way that you can when somebody is bad for you and good for you at the same time. His feelings about Merle come hand-in-hand with puppet strings, all tied to his limbs and his heart and his head. Though he's coming to think that his love for anybody comes with those strings. He doesn't know how to turn off the need that builds inside of him, the need to _give, _and he doesn't know how to ask for anything in return.

(He _wants_ things, constantly, but until Beth, he'd never met somebody else who protected those strings instead of yanking and pulling until the tension almost snaps and breaks.)

Losing Merle was inevitable. He'd left Daryl before, it was only a matter of time before he did it again. It didn't matter if the leaving was caused by Merle's getting caught purposely by the _po_lice so he could get dragged off to juvie and the hell out of their house. Or if it was caused by insane walkers and survival of the fittest. Merle was a leaver and Daryl is a stayer.

With Merle, he remembers rage and flailing arms held back by the others. He remembers channeling anger into action. He remembers having a group at his side, finding evidence that his brother was somehow, beyond all expectation, still alive and running. But that just brings him back around to the fact that Merle leaves and Daryl stays (because that's what happened no matter what Merle tried to claim) and the patterns begun long ago don't change just because everything else around them did.

This knowledge made it easier, in a way, to get over Merle with time. He can remember how Merle would goad him into things back when they were two dumb redneck kids and even older when they were just two dumb redneck drifters. Even when he knew better, the pull of Merle and _blood _and _family_ was too strong to deny. But with Merle gone, the voice of _knowing better_ is stronger. He feels like a different version of himself, one that maybe he should have always been. One that was there, hiding, back when he was fresh and new before the world added all of its misery.

With Beth, all he remembers is crushing defeat. He was alone but he still tried. He ran, and ran and ran, missing his bike more than ever before. She just disappeared. No trace that she was still alive, no tracks he could find once the car carrying her away made it to road. He remembers falling to the ground, before Joe and the others found him. He remembers thinking that he will never care for somebody again, not the way he did for her. With Beth he knows that she would never have left him behind, not on purpose. While Daryl is a giver, Beth is a collector.

(She's not a _taker_. She doesn't _use_ what she collects, sucking it dry until there's nothing left. She keeps, she treasures, and she writes everything down in her book so nothing is forgotten.)

Finding Beth is not like finding Merle. With Merle it was all about obligation and being torn in half. He remembers his brother pulling strings from one side and Rick from the other. And even though Rick didn't mean to make his options feel so finite, the end result was just that and he'll never be able to erase the image of Merle feeding like an animal before he slammed a knife through his brain.

It's not until they find her (or really, she finds them) that he realizes just how much he loves her in a way that is very different from the self-crushing love that comes from knowing your kin and following them to the ends of the earth.

"I made myself a promise," she says one day after he pulls her aside to inform her that Maggie is worried about her and that if she won't talk to Maggie (or to him) she has to talk to _somebody_ about what happened.

They're lying next to each other at the edge of the camp, near glowing embers that make just enough light to see the lines of each others faces when they turn to look at one another.

"I made myself a promise that I would never get sad enough to try, _you know_, again. I wrote that promise down in my book, over and over again until my fingers were so tired I couldn't lift them for an hour." She smiles at him with that look, half-sad, half-hopeful. Her eyes big and bright for the first time in weeks, instead of dull and scared.

He's been carrying around her journal for a week now, trying to figure out the best time to give it back to her. He pulls the book out of his bag and, voice gruff, "I kept it safe for you. But don't worry, I didn't read it."

She thanks him without words as she pulls the page open and traces her fingers across the words with her eyes closed, the sad leaving her smile, leaving room only for the hope.

She hands the book over to him and says, "It's okay if you want to look. I'm not sure I'm ready to have it back yet."

He looks down at the book, back in his hands, her small, looping letters shouting words of love back at him. But he doesn't feel the need to intrude, not just yet anyway. He just slides his arm into the space between their bodies and holds his hand, palm facing towards the sky

(Beth pulls his strings and ties them to hers, as her hand slides into his, and he doesn't feel controlled or controlling. He just feels _safe._)


End file.
